Organ harvesting issue raised in St. Joseph County morgue discussions

Dobson hopes to reach a decision by Thanksgiving on morgue building site.

Dobson hopes to reach a decision by Thanksgiving on morgue building site.

November 02, 2006|NANCY J. SULOK Tribune Staff Writer

SOUTH BEND -- County Commissioner Mark Dobson said he hopes the county will decide by Thanksgiving what to do about its morgue. For more than 40 years, Memorial Hospital has allowed St. Joseph County to use its morgue, without charge, for the storage of bodies and performance of autopsies. Memorial no longer is willing to offer the service, especially not for free. It started charging the county in April. The county paid $7,200 for April and May and $10,000 for June and July, according to Helen Decker, administrative assistant to the coroner. Dobson is the point man for the commissioners on the morgue issue. He has been talking to various groups and agencies with a vested interest in the morgue. What he envisions, Dobson said, is that the county would build a morgue but would contract with an agency to operate it. That has raised some concerns. Last week, Dobson met with representatives of the Lions Club, which has operated an eye bank in Indiana since 1959. Timothy Fisher, executive director of the Lions, said the club was worried that the county might sign a contract with a private agency that would have sole access to tissues or other body parts. "To me, if it goes in that direction, it's entering a slippery slope," Fisher said. Dobson said he assured the Lions and other agencies that he doesn't want to award exclusivity to any single entity. Any contract the county signs, he said, would have to provide for equal access for tissue procurement. "We don't want to be designating tissue procurement,'' he said. That likely would rule out a proposal by Donor Services of Indiana, based in Fort Wayne. Terri Tibbot, executive director, said Donor Services would like the county to donate land for a morgue, or sell it for a token amount, perhaps $1. Her company then would build a morgue and operate it. Tibbot envisions a horseshoe-shaped building or roughly 7,000 square feet. About 5,000 square feet would be dedicated to the forensic side of the business, she said, and the other 2,000 to the procurement side. Dobson agrees with the 7,000-square-foot estimate but doesn't like the exclusivity of Donor Services' proposal for tissue recovery. Tibbot said an exclusive contract would be for tissues only, not for organs. Tissues can be recovered from a body after death for transplant purposes. Organs generally are removed from living people or those being kept alive for transplant purposes, and they generally are removed in a hospital setting, not a morgue. Two potential morgue sites are under consideration, Dobson said. One is near the Sample-Olive overpass, near a building the county already owns. The advantage of that site, Dobson said, is that the county's building once housed a food operation, so it has walk-in coolers. Dobson said the morgue likely would not be in that building, but in a new one built next to it. The new building could take advantage of the substantial electrical power that already exists in the area, he said. The second site is on Lathrop Street. Dobson said a building there could serve multiple purposes, perhaps housing a 911 dispatch center. Dobson would like the morgue to be regional, serving perhaps three other counties in addition to St. Joseph County. He said the Cobb Funeral Home has expressed interest in housing and operating the morgue, and two other funeral homes have shown varying degrees of interest. Cobb's proposal was a good one, Dobson said, but the county has not pursued any of the funeral home proposals because it is considering a new building instead.